Breathe Through a Handkerchief

This one goes out to Ms. C (you know who you are!).

Some of the worst aspects of daily life are exactly what makes you miss the way it was years later. Before I packed up and headed off to other states, countries and continents for good, summer always brought at least a few days, but sometimes weeks, or even months of something completely unavoidable: hot, dry days that offered, at best, no more than a fluffy cloud that got no darker than white and delivered nary a drop of precipitation.

Before long, all the dirt roads turned into dust factories, just waiting for a truck to fly down them and whip the sandy red clay up into an arid but insistent afternoon fog that turned the rays of the sun visible as it drifted off in search of something brown and crackly to settle on.

Normally, that included my hair, or, at yet an even greater extreme, nostrils and ears. A good shower at the end of day was the only way to free myself of it. But not just a quick shower. Else, I would soon find the dust reappearing after I dried off, ready to accompany me to bed.

That stuff took work to get rid of. At least two good shampoos and soapy scrub-downs were needed. In a world where cleanliness was a code-word for godliness, The Almighty proved to be a stubborn and elusive fellow. Even the usually highly reliable Dial soap was forced to perform at its ultimate to get me there.